Here's a little epic for you to read :wah: should keep you busy for a couple of minutes :sneaky: :p
This is a true happening.
The gate crasher.
When we lived in another suburb of Nottingham, in the 80's, we decided to have a BBQ as it was a lovely evening. We quite often used to do this, whenever the weather was good. On this occasion, we had a friend from Yorkshire visiting us, Yvonne, (she was great fun), a friend of my son's - Helen (also great fun) and another couple of people (can't remember their names!). We had our barbecue and were sitting in the garden chatting and having a laugh, then somebody decided to have a water fight ! During this fracas, Yvonne was the one who was squirting most water around at people, so she was grabbed and hauled upstairs to the bathroom, put in the bath and the cold tap turned on ! It was really hilarious! I thought that Yvonne needed an ally so I tried to 'rescue' her and kept turning the cold tap off, and helping to pull her from the bath. We succeeded in the end! But we were all a bit damp, particularly Yvonne ! All of us were crowding in the bathroom, then there appeared a strange young man, dressed in smart casual clothes, at the bathroom door ! I thought it was one of Helen's pals, but it soon became apparent that nobody knew this guy ! I wondered how he had managed to get by our Doberman mongrel dog, but realised that the dog must have thought the guy was a friend, as there had been so much milling about during the evening.
Chris, my hubby, said that he had got the wrong house and escorted him down the stairs. This guy didn't say much, except that he was insisting that this was the right house, and when we all got down stairs into the hallway he suddenly decided that he wanted to go back up the stairs ! I realised that he was either drunk or under the influence of drugs, and I squeezed past him, as did my 15 year old son Andy, to prevent him from returning up the stairs (better to be on the ground floor if anything should kick off !), while Chris held his attention by asking him who he was and where he needed to go. Andy and I sat on the stairs about half way up (the soonest we could achieve our block).
The guy started saying loudly that he was 'the boss', that he was 'king' and we were all nothing. He tried to squeeze by to get beyond us up the stairs, but I managed to get him to sit down between Andy and me, and he asked us our names - we told him, and I asked him his name - he said forcefully that he was 'Boss', he was the 'King'......... OK I thought, and got close enough to his face to catch his breath. My heart fell as there was no smell of alcohol at all - he was high on drugs of some sort. I realised that we had to be ultra careful with him.
He said, again forcefully, that he had a knife in his pocket and that we would have to behave for 'the Boss'. God, I thought, how do we get out of this one? Our telephone was in the hallway and well in view of this guy. All the others must have heard what he'd said about the knife, because there was a look of great concern on their faces. I started 'chatting this guy up', a bit of flannel, a bit of muttering nice things about him in his ear, while I carefully slid my hand into his pocket and gently held his hand ( I thought that if he had a knife, I would prefer a bit of warning if he was going to pull it out on us !).
All this was interspersed with various rantings from the guy, who was obviously hallucinating, and it must have been terrifying to him, his eyes sometimes widened in fear at what he thought he saw.
He said that Andy was earlier in the alphabet than Gill, so it would be Andy that would 'get it' first, if we didn't do as he told us. My blood ran cold then, and I decided that if he tried anything, I would use every ounce of strength to kick him down the stairs, and hope he crashed his head into the radiator in the hall, I noticed that Chris and the others were standing to the side and had left the hall immediately at the bottom of the stairs, totally clear. Perhaps they may have been aware of what I was thinking. At this point I did notice that Helen appeared to be not there! I briefly wondered where she was, as I could see everybody else. I had no idea of the passage of time, as I was totally focussed on the slightest move this guy made. He was about to pull his hand from his pocket, so I started to caress his hand and said that we all knew that he was 'the Boss', he relaxed his hand and kept it in his pocket, still saying yes he was 'Boss' 'The King'. I tried to carefully and gently feel around in his pocket, pretending to be soothing his hand, but trying to locate any knife, but without success. Maybe he didn't actually have a knife - but I wasn't about to put that to the test.
It was so tense, frightening...............a very critical situation - I had no idea how to treat this character, except to humour him. To avoid upsetting him at all costs. I was racking my brains to think of something to do that would imobilise him. I knew that he had to be rendered unconscious, otherwise he could well be like a raging bull, and God knows how the incident would end then!
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door, directly along the hall in front of us. Chris asked if it was alright to answer the door and the guy said that it could be more of his subjects so they had better be let in ! My heart sank even further at the thought of more like him arriving.............................
When Chris opened the door two big policemen stepped over the threshold ! The relief was amazing !
They must have been warned that the guy was high on drugs, their approach was very careful and friendly towards this guy. They gradually persuaded him to come along and let 'these good people enjoy their evening' while they helped him to find the right place that he was looking for.
They quietly escorted him out of the front door and away from the house, and down the road.
We didn't actually see where they went, but we were just so relieved that the incident was over and nobody was hurt. I was particularly relieved that he hadn't gone for my son, I knew I would have gone berserk if he had !
All of us taking deep breaths, and I was shaking, I think everybody was! I went to put the kettle on for a much needed cup of tea and coffee.
It turned out that Helen, bless her, had realised we would not be able to call the police from the house, so she sneaked off and ran to the police station, about 400 yards away from our house round the corner at the end of the street. However, the police station was closed but she was able to use the emergency phone outside the police station front door !
Thank goodness for people who have a bit of imagination and common sense !!
However, it did not end there !!!!!!!!
We had been relaxing and chatting in the kitchen for about half an hour when there was this face appeared at the window ! Our dog sounded off like a banshee, making us all jump ! Yes, that guy had found his way back to our house !! The police must have just escorted him to the end of the road, then gone back to their car ffs !
Priceless !!!
Chris said to close the door quick and lock it! Which was done, but the window (the old type slide-up sash windows) was open about a foot at the bottom and he was trying to get in there, but the dog was the other side of the window growling ferociously at him, so he held back. Helen did her sneaking off trick again, not sure where to this time as Chris was ringing the police from the hallway.
We were hoping the guy wouldn't smash the windows ! So we all stood either side to avoid flying glass. The dog was keeping him at bay, barking and growling at him, which seemed to freak the guy out - God knows what he could see in front of him, in his drugged state.
After a few more minutes there was quite a lot of noise outside, and I could see a lot of young guys surrounding this fella. Helen appeared with them and told them not to do anything unless Chris said. A sort of stand-off. The guy was ranting about being 'Boss' and for them to get away from him, they were all devils etc. The lads kept their distance, waiting for a signal from Chris. Helen apparently had run round to another nearby road where she knew some lads who were living in a half-way house, just having been released from Young Offenders Institutions. Helen was a sort of voluntary mentor for them, and they thought she was a great girl.
This went on for about another 5 minutes and the police arrived. They looked at all these lads, slightly apprehensively, but the lads made no moves but just kept an eye on Charley boy. This time the police collected the guy and put him in the police car, thanked us for our patience and assistance and drove off.
I offered the lads coffee, but they said there were too many of them. We thanked them for helping us out of a very sticky situation - thanks to the first police non-effort. They said they were pleased they could help, and that Helen knew where they were if we needed them again. They waved cheerily and made their way back to their own house.
Peace broke out, and we knew then that we would not see that guy again that evening.
That kind of put me off having BBQs for quite a while.
busy day:wah: not sure if we going to van on monday yet but we dont normally go till afternoon so may get on before i go:D
:driving:
:-3
:wah: